Mrs. Collingham was prepared for this; she had discounted it in advance. "She’s playing for more," she said to herself. Luckily, she had named her minimum only, and had arranged with her husband for a maximum. The maximum was all the same to her so long as she saved Bob. Having given Jennie credit for seeing through the game all along—such girls were quick and astute—she had expected that the first figure of the "present" would meet with just this reception. But Jennie was saying to herself, "Oh, if this kind offer had only come yesterday!" Five thousand dollars was a sum of which she could not see the spending limitations. It meant all of which the family had need and that she herself had ever coveted. With five thousand dollars, she could not only have put her father on his feet, but have come before Hubert as an heiress. "If you don’t think it enough," Mrs. Collingham said, at last, with a shade of coldness in her tone, "I should be willing to make it seven—or ten. Perhaps we’d better say ten at once, and end the discussion. My husband’s willing to make it ten, but I don’t think he’d give more. Our son is very dear to us"—the realities seeped through in spite of her attempts at comedy—"and, oh, Miss Follett, if you’ll only help us to keep him for ourselves as you’ve helped us already—" Jennie staggered to her feet. Her arms hung lax at her sides. Ten thousand dollars! The sum was fabulous! It would have meant all cares lifted from the home—and Hubert! She was hardly aware of speaking as she said: "Oh, Mrs. Collingham, I can’t take your money. I wish I could. My God! how I wish I could! But—but—" "But, for goodness’ sake, child, why can’t you?" "Because—oh, because—I’m married to Bob already." CHAPTER IX It was one of those occasions when the auditory nerve seems to connect imperfectly with the brain. Mrs. Collingham placed her cup on the table and leaned forward, puzzled, tense. "What did you say? Sit down. Tell me that again." Jennie collapsed against the tan cushion of the chair, and repeated her confession. Her hostess’s brows knitted painfully. "But I don’t understand. When did you marry him?" The girl explained that it had been on the previous afternoon. "But—but—you said just now that you were in love with some one else." "So I am—only—only, Bob made me." "Made you what?" "Made me go and get a license and marry him. He said"—her lips and tongue were so parched that it was hard to form the words—"he said he was going away in a few days to South America, and that he couldn’t go unless he knew I was his wife. I begged him to let me off, but he—he wouldn’t. Oh, Mrs. Collingham, what am I to do?" The appeal helped Junia to rally her stricken powers. It enabled her to say inwardly: "I must act through this girl herself. If I estrange her, I may lose my son." A flash of the lioness wrath with which she trembled might lead to an irretrievably false step. So she made her tone kindly, sympathetic, almost affectionate.